Winifred Mak

I felt confident in my care with Dr. Mak, she took me over as a patient when my Dr, Ryan Martin left the practice. She was always clear and compassionate. After my third failed IUI, I wanted to do another one and she recommended we go forward with an IVF cycle, and I'm glad that she did as I am now 6 and a half months pregnant. My only complaint really, is that when I was prescribed Misoprostal for a miscarriage, she did not adequately explain the level of pain I was in store for. I really should have been provided a stronger pain medication.

Be sure to ask a lot of questions, she will spend the time to answer them, but may not always offer up all the details at first. Also, it's good to know that Dr. Mak and Yale Fertility in general, tend to lean on the conservative side so she had recommended we only transfer one embryo with our first cycle. Ultimately my husband and I decided to transfer 2 embryos to better our chances and Dr. Mak was understanding of our decision.

Dr. Mak always came into the room having reviewed my information which I appreciated. She took her time with me to explain things, I never felt rushed. When she was giving me negative news, she did so with compassion.

I did 3 IUI cycles, each time with Letrizole by mouth taken on days 3–7 of my period, followed by an Ovidrel trigger injection the night before IUI. After the first cycle failed, by Letrizole dose was increased. The second IUI cycle resulted in a miscarriage (growth stopped around 5.5 weeks, and misoprostal was taken to pass the embryo around week 11). After the 3rd failed IUI, plans were made to do an IVF cycle. I started with taking Norethindrone, and Metformin to prevent hyperstimulation (this was a suggestion from my MD husband who had done some research). I then did a combination of low dose Gonal-F, Menopur and Follistim. My follicle growth was monitored every other day along with bloodwork. Once ready, I did an intramuscular HCG trigger shot. I was also taking doxycycln at some point during the injection period. I then did a retrieval procedure (performed by a different Dr.) and had my transfer 5 days later, tranferring 2 embryos. The transfer was in May of this year (2017) and I am currently 6.5 months pregnant with a singleton. It should also be noted that I sought weekly accupuncture treatment for the 6 months prior to my IVF treatment. I also had acupuncture before my retrieval, before and after my transfer.

The nursing staff was always warm, patient and informative.

Yale's strengths: strong team of qualified Dr's and Nurses, an organized system to manage the frequent morning bloodwork/ultrasounds, convenient location, great use of the online MyChart portal to comprehensively post and notify you of test results, upcoming appointments, and a convenient way to communicate with your care team. Contacting the front desk for scheduling, questions, etc was always difficult. Their front desk team was not always patient/friendly. They didn't adequately prepare me for the pain of passing a miscarriage with misoprostal

It was a bit of a cattle call, but I understood why it needed to be that way, it seemed to be the most efficient way to handle the volume and frequency of the monitoring.

Our insurance covered up to $8,000 lifetime toward fertility treatments. We roughly paid around $12,000 out of pocket after 3 IUIs, testing, and 1 IVF cycle.

Yale tends to recommend only transferring 1 embryo on your first transfer attempt, more conservative than what I've heard about other practices.